some of my questions are going to sound pretty naive, since i have no business experience, but please bear with me!

I'd like to start a small online business, something I can do on the side (it won't be my main source of income unless I get laid off).

My interest is indoor gardening; as I've pursued this interest for the past few years, I've been coming up with "wish lists" of things that I'd love to have that are not available in the marketplace. I've had difficulty locating very specific products for growing plants indoors. And when there were some to be found, they were ridiculously expensive.

My target customer base would be apartment dwellers who love plants. Products would be miniature plants, grow lights, terrariums. I've been experimenting with some of these and think I've accumulated enough experience to know what works, and would be able to provide clear instructions and advice to customers.

Questions:

How do i learn about wholesale distributors that are out there for specific categories of products, for instance, large glass jars for terrariums, etc.. I've done some online searches but have been really frustrated by the lack of products (tho' I did find one that had some things I want). Is there a way to tap into a network of distributors that are not easily accessible to the public?

If I have ideas for specific designs, like certain shapes for glass jars or types of grow lights, how hard is it to make custom requests? Do manufacturers only cater for very large bulk requests? As a small operation, I would not be placing very large orders.

I want to make this affordable to people. But from what I've seen online regarding wholesale manufacturers, most seem to be in China. I would much prefer working with US companies. Has the manufacturing base been so decimated?!

SCORE and SBA are great resources for how to run a business. But I need to learn how to get the products I need and commission custom products from manufacturers. Any clues on where to start searching for them would be much appreciated.

You can rather easily become the obvious expert of indoor gardening by creating a website and/or blog with lots of useful, free information. People will buy stuff from a friendly obvious expert who they feel can help them succeed with their dreams of indoor gardening.

Many vendors now make full use of the Inet. Every day more manufacturers recognize the profit potential and FUN of doing business with small businesses.

As for manufacturing, it's a Chinese world. In my dreams Detroit's big auto makers devolve back into a hundred separate, smaller, agile, auto manufacturing companies. About a hundred separate auto makers called the Great Lakes region home back in the early days. Before big bloated bureaucracies ate everything in sight.

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